The Other Side Of The Door
by notyourdaughter
Summary: "She wasn't a pretty girl, never would be, but she was smart, and she smiled to herself when she heard her mother weeping down the hall." Drabbles of Addie's POV, her thoughts on Tate and Violet's relationship, etc. Mostly AU.


This is just going to be a series of (mostly AU) Addie centered drabbles with Violate mixed in.  
I really wanted to write something from her perspective, as I really liked her character and don't think she gets enough credit.

* * *

Adelaide Langdon was not half as stupid as people mistook her for.  
She wasn't conventionally smart, and certainly not up to par in the beauty area by society's standards, but she was clever and cunning. She used the fact that people thought she was an intellectual vegetable to listen in on personal conversations and gain access to the most private aspects of people's lives, without them being any the wiser.

Years of eaves-dropping on Constance, and/or Constance's revolving door of boyfriend's had given her a closer look into her mother's psyche, and while she would never go to Harvard, never have a boyfriend she could talk about any of the things she knew (and she knew _a lot_) with, she had a deeper understanding of the Southern beauty with a short temper that had given birth to her than anyone else possessed.

Her memory was flawless, too. Especially when it came to the things that really counted.

* * *

Addie remembered how one night a man who she had only ever heard her mother call '_darling_' came into her bedroom. He was a nice looking man, tall, early 30's, was always talking about his '_career_' as she listened behind Constance's closed door. She wondered what his job was, if maybe he was an actor. Addie reasoned it couldn't be that, she figured she would've seen him on the TV in Tate's room that he let her watch when she snuck into his room after their mother and her current suitor had passed out.

This man really stood apart from all the rest though. There was something about his eyes, as he sat down on the edge of her bed.  
Addie sat up, the stars projected from her night light playing patterns across the man's face.

"Mama doesn't like it when I'm up past my bedtime."

She was nervous. If Constance came in and saw her awake, she'd make her go to the 'bad girl closet'. She hated the closet.

The man put a finger to her lips. Addie looked down at it. She'd never been this close to a boy before, except for Tate, but he didn't count.

"That means we'll need to be very quiet, doesn't it?" Addie gulped, but nodded anyways.

"That's a good girl…"

She wasn't sure what was happening, but the man had started touching her nightgown. Her mother wouldn't like this at all.

"Mama will be mad if you touch my nightgown."

She was confused; no one ever touched her, except for Tate when he gave her hugs.  
Constance made sure there were repercussions for thinking she deserved any physical contact;_ mongrels_ like her didn't have any need for it.

Which was to blame for Addie being completely unprepared when the man's hand snuck under her gown to caress her breast.

She was frozen. Her mother was going to lock her in the closet forever when she found out about this.

A plethora of bad memories from the 'bad girl closet' flashed through her mind, becoming the reason for the tears sliding down her pale cheeks.  
The man took notice but didn't stop, just kept stroking her virgin chest as he spoke.

"I'm going to make you feel good…so, please, don't cry. This is probably all you've ever get, so just enjoy it." He snickered to himself at the last part, and Addie knew this man wasn't a nice man.

But there was nothing she could do when his hand trailed back down the underside of her nightgown to her most private parts.

She had never felt anything like it before, couldn't help shivering at the odd feeling of his fingers slipping inside her underwear.  
She didn't get a chance to collect her thoughts, though, as the door swung open, the light was flicked on, and Constance's voice reverberated through the room.

"Adelaide Langdon, what on_ God's_ Earth do you think you are doing up at this time!?"

The rest of her admonishment never came though, as Constance had frozen, taking in the scene in front of her.

By the time the gravity of what was happening in her daughter's bedroom had hit her, the man had already removed his shaking hand from Addie's underwear, brushing the tops of his pants off as if he had just been having a snack and not defiling someone.

The air had gained an uncomfortable weight during the blonde matriarch's moment of disbelieving silence.

The man loosened the collar around his neck that had all of a sudden become awfully sweaty and made to side step around the woman still standing shell shocked in the door way.  
In hind sight, this was a poor idea as she chose this time to flutter back into reality, jaw setting hard, vein throbbing in her neck like it was trying to keep her alive.

"_You_…" she seethed the word like it was poison on her tongue and Addie knew by the clench in her mother's teeth that she was going to the 'bad girl closet' for a very long time.

The tears streaming down her face mirrored her mother's as she watched her beat the man with her fists, yelling things about how she had shared a bed with him and he had chosen a mongoloid over her.  
Addie wasn't sure what all of that meant, but she did know that her mother's tantrum had little to do with the fact the man had touched her under her nightgown.

The man barely shielded himself from Constance's blows, inching closer to the doorway until he was finally able to flee, running from the Langdon women without a glance back.

Addie knew what was coming. She prepared herself as Constance turned to her, a mirror of her own brown eyes she had gotten quite acquainted with in her mother's homemade closet of horrors, clouding over with an emotion Addie couldn't name, had never quite seen.

The feeling of her mother's blows connecting with her fragile skin over and over again was something she didn't think she'd ever quite forget. Sometimes she still felt them in her nightmares.

She cried in the hallway closet turned psychological torture chamber until she slept, awoken to her brother's soft hands brushing her hair away from her battered face, a matching bruise ringing his left eye.

* * *

He was the first one, but he wasn't the last one, _that man_.  
She didn't know if her mother knew, didn't care, either.  
She wasn't a pretty girl, never would be, but she was smart and she smiled to herself when she heard her mother weeping down the hall.


End file.
